Effective means for learning to manage cognitive load in second grade school writing: a case study

Abstract

In recent years, many school writing studies have been carried out within the framework of metacognitive processes. Only a few studies have included cognitive load as a frame of analysis. In addition to components and processes, mental operations (identifying relevant knowledge or procedures, selecting them from long-term memory, and so on) contribute to cognitive overload. In the present study, we focus on spelling in text production, particularly in the translation process. The didactic sequences designed by both teachers and researchers for the second grade allow the learner to work on spelling while still maintaining the entire cognitive field of authentic learning to write in school. The spelling objectives are worked on primarily in complex composition tasks but are also consolidated in specific follow-up tasks linked to the former. The didactic sequences are analysed in terms of cognitive load, then observations of two second-grade learners are analysed in terms of cognitive resources management: how they use previously planned knowledge in writing, how they form a limited number of their own cognitive work-units in spelling among the potential units of the whole writing field, how children manage searching in reference documents, and how they acquire fluency in the writing translation process. Managing one's cognitive resources in learning to spell integrated in the authentic school setting, without detrimental overload, becomes possible under specific conditions that concern both learner resource management and structures of didactic situations.